


You Would Not Know Him Now

by azure_horizon



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Movie(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 14:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azure_horizon/pseuds/azure_horizon
Summary: You would not know him now…But still he diedNobly, so cover him overWith violets of pridePurple from Severn side.Victory wasn’t supposed to be like this.





	You Would Not Know Him Now

_You would not know him now…_ __  
But still he died  
Nobly, so cover him over  
With violets of pride  
Purple from Severn side.

_\---To His Love by Ivor Gurney_

He’s awoken from another dream, drenched in sweat despite the cold chill that has long since settled in the room. His heart is pounding in his chest, the thud-thud a terrible staccato reminding him that – somehow – he is alive. His breath is harsh in the darkness and he turns to see if his thrashing has woken Diana.

 

She’s still asleep, only the milky film of the moon glancing a pale highlight against her cheek. There was a time when she used to waken with him, when his dreams unsettled her too. It has been a long time since the last time she tried to soothe him back to sleep.

 

He can’t say that he blames her, really. There’s only so much rejection a woman – any woman, even Diana Princess of Themyscira -  can put up with before they don’t even try anymore.

 

He stares at her, dark and beautiful, in the bed beside him, her presence calming him despite itself. He can feel the thundering in his chest slow, until it is a dull, heavy ache in his chest. He can hear the sounds of London – bustling, even at night – over the rush of blood in his ears. He can feel the sweat begin to dry and cool against his pebbled skin but he doesn’t move to cover himself yet, doesn’t want to disturb her peaceful slumber – and he will, because even now, even after yet another night of heatless conversation, even after a night of embrace-less sleep, he wants nothing more than to press himself up against her warm skin, her lithe body. She would welcome it, he knows, she would welcome it with warm brushes of her fingers over his arm, would welcome it with a press of her back against his chest, would welcome it with an attempt to melt into him.

 

But it never lasts. Not for him, anyway. Her presence would become claustrophobic, would become restrictive and too warm in a way he knows it shouldn’t, in a way he’s tried to fight so many times but has ended up with him curled around himself on the floor by the bed shivering and shaking with Diana teary eyed above him.

 

So he stares at her, unchanged since the day he met her on that beach on Themyscira, beautiful, kind and fierce - even in sleep. He wants to trace where the dark hairs brush against her face, against her shoulders and his hands hovers over her, her body breathing warmth against his clammy hand. It lasts a moment, quiet and calming and he feels something settle within his mind before she shifts slightly, and he withdraws, stills as he watches her shoulder search for his phantom touch before settling once again under the covers.

 

He sighs, rolls away from her, onto his back.

 

Victory wasn’t supposed to be like this.

 

\--

 

He remembers little about what it felt like to exist, before the war. During the War, he’d grown, he’d aged, he’d become a man. There are things he had known – drinking beer, bedding women, carousing on the streets with friends – but all of that was boyish, mawkish now in the face of all that he has seen, all that he has fought for.

 

It’s been two years since the end of the War and neither Britain nor Steve can bring themselves to put it entirely behind them. His body still aches in a way no 30 year old body should; the moulded over bones creaking in the coldness that clings to the streets of London; the dreams of fire and brimstone that plague his world (both sleeping and awake) are slowly breaking his mind apart just as memory and starvation is breaking Britain.

 

He isn’t sure what time it is, the days one long shadeless grey. He’s been out of bed since Diana left innumerable hours before although he wouldn’t go so far as to say he has been entirely awake. The newspaper – delivered by poor street urchins from the stand two streets away – is open and unread in front him, the spread something about Bloody Sunday and the Irish Republicans but he can’t bring himself to read it, or to care.

 

Diana had promised that Ares’ death would be the end of Wars; the Governments of the world had called The War the one that would End All Wars and yet here they are, two years on, fighting and fighting and fighting. He might have been moulded by war _for_ war but parts have chipped off, broken apart and he just doesn’t quite _fit_ anymore.

 

The door to the apartment opens and Steve jumps at the sound, the cup in his hand falling, shattering against the tiled floor.  He stares at it for a long moment, at the tea seeping into his thick socks, before looking over to Diana who has stilled in the doorway.

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs quietly, her voice carrying gently over the room to his ears. There was a time when it would have soothed him, soothed the ache in his body and his heart – but that was long ago. Now, the words anger him and he shakes his head, dropping to his knees to begin the clean-up process for what was already the second time that day. “Here, let me-“  

 

“No!” He shouts and he grabs her wrist as she reaches for the shards scattered across the floor. The words are out before he can even think, and although he knows his strength is no match for hers, she stills. “I’ll get it. It’s my fault.”

 

“It is not-“ she begins but he turns the full heat of his glare on her, daring her to continue that thought. This is a fight they’ve had countless times, a battle of wits that she used to push further, that she used to make sure she won. Now, she sighs, lowers her eyes and stands to her full height. “Very well.” She moves around the kitchen, unburdening herself of the heavy cloak she had wreathed herself in to ward off the London winter. “There is a dinner tonight – Etta has invited us to attend to in order for me to meet some members of-“

 

“I’m not going,” he says harshly, the words are out of his mouth before he could even properly think them.

 

“Steve…” She looks across at him, to where he is still kneeling on the floor, not quite ready to face her head on.

 

“No. I don’t- I can’t.”

 

She doesn’t say anything for a long time, simply stares at him before she sighs again (he’s become ridiculously familiar with that hateful sound) and drops her head slightly.

 

“Steve, you have been missed. Etta-“

 

“Etta knows where we live.”

 

“Yes, she does – but you have refused her entry on her last three attempts to visit you. You cannot hide yourself away in these rooms forever.” She has managed to catch his eye and, despite the anger roiling in his gut, he can’t help but gaze back at her. Perhaps it is because she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen that he hates her so much at times, that he hates the pity she gives him. “The Steve-“

 

“The Steve you knew died during the War. He got thrown from a plane and broke his back and both his legs and broke his mind.” He surges to his feet, taking a step towards her, ignoring the flare of pain that follows. “Don’t you get that? I don’t even know who that person is anymore – I don’t know how to _be_ him anymore.”

 

“Steve…”

 

“Don’t!”

 

He jumps back when she reaches for him and she stills, ager flaring in her eyes to match his. They stare at each other for a long moment before he pivots, steps over the shattered china and slams the door to their bedroom.

 

-

 

_When it was over, when they had won, as the sun had risen – molten, pink, almost Themyscarian – over the smouldering remnants of the war machines, of Ares, they had cheered and danced and laughed as all men embraced each other without fear or enmity. They fell to their knees as golden shards of light reflected from Diana, their saviour, their new God – but Diana did not want that from them._

_“Ares is dead,” she announced (unnecessarily) with conviction. “This War is over.” She stared at each of them, her gaze piercing and burning and sorrowful. “But only this one.”_

_And she had left him._

_-_

_“They have breakfast, they get married, and they grow old.”_

_“What is that like?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

 


End file.
